


silence must be heard

by wardolope (thisissirius)



Category: The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 07:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2643872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisissirius/pseuds/wardolope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I loved you.”</p><p>Thomas clenches his eyes shut, rolling over to the other side of the bed. He sucks in a breath, hoping his inattention will make Newt go away.</p><p>“I don’t suppose I ever told you.” Newt sounds distant, like he’s thinking of somewhere else.</p><p>Or the one where the tentative hold Thomas has on his sanity isn't going to hold forever. (Post-Death Cure. Spoilers.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	silence must be heard

**Author's Note:**

> hello, i am new to this fandom.
> 
> someone on tumblr said that they wanted PTSD-thomas who hallucinates newt. this is kind of that story? i hope this is that story. at least, it's the result of listening to nightmare too many times on repeat. 
> 
> unbeta'd. i hope you enjoy :)

It’s supposed to be Paradise.

Everyone calls it Paradise, and compared to Thomas’ entire life - he tries not to think of the time before the Maze - it is. He adjusts as well as a person can when they’ve spent their entire existence scared, confused and running for their life. He watches as Minho and Frypan and the others settle into their new home with a gusto and appreciation that should be surprising but doesn’t break the constant _nothing_ Thomas has felt since stepping through the Flat Trans. It’s like he never left. He has a secret that’s keeping him there, weighing him down with every minute and he’s trying to break free.

Newt won’t let him.

“He’s gonna ask, you know,” Newt says, for the millionth time.

Thomas blocks him out. Minho hasn’t asked and probably won’t. He likes to think they know each other pretty well by now, and if Thomas pretends that it doesn’t bother him, Minho will leave it alone. It’s working so far, and Thomas isn’t one to mess with what works.

“If that were true,” Newt tells him, with a smile that’s all edge and no humour. “We’d still be in the bugging maze, wouldn’t we?”

Thomas digs his nails into the wood so hard that one breaks.

“Hey man, you okay?” Thomas doesn’t recognise the name of the boy who’s asking, doesn’t care to learn.

He nods, not trusting himself to speak, and smooths his fingers out against the wood, sinking back into the work. They’re expanding, hoping that their plans to repopulate turn out well, and they’re going to need the space. Thomas thinks it’s probably just for something to do. It’s like he’s stopped caring about anything and it shouldn’t make him feel as bad as it does. Surely he’s allowed a few minutes downtime from what his life was before _Paradise_?

When he looks up, Newt is gone.

 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“I loved you.”

Thomas clenches his eyes shut, rolling over to the other side of the bed. He sucks in a breath, hoping his inattention will make Newt go away.

“I don’t suppose I ever told you.” Newt sounds distant, like he’s thinking of somewhere else. The Glade.

_Go away, go away, go away._

Newt doesn’t listen. He never listens.

“I’ll always love you.”

 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Brenda looks at Thomas and sometimes he thinks she knows.

He hasn’t said a word since they entered the trans. He doesn’t want to say anything now, even as she’s asking if he’s alright, if he needs to talk. Shaking his head, he wraps the vines around the wood, the way he was taught back in the glade. His fingers slips. Everything he’s ever been taught was learnt in the Glade. It’s everything he knows, apart from the scorch, WCKD and the Cranks. Newt. His fingers sticky with blood, the gun slipping through his fingers.

He grits his teeth, ties tighter than he should, and splinters the wood.

He drops the sticks on the ground and walks away.

 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Minho watches him.

Thomas can feel him looking. He shouldn’t be surprised; Minho made a habit of watching and learning and remembering, he has to be doing the same now. They’re at the fire, surrounded by new friends and new beginnings, but all Thomas can do is think of the past. Scuffing a shoe in the dirt, Thomas nods along with the guys, who are talking about the things they can build, the society they can build. He can tell some of them are skirting around him. He doesn’t blame them; he doesn’t talk, walks around like he’s drowning in his own past, doesn’t bother making friends he doesn’t already have.

He’s probably losing them.

Minho comes to sit beside him. He looks sideways, and Thomas waits for the conversation, but it never comes. Minho does know him well, and he sinks into the conversation like he’d been there all along. He really was a good choice for leader. Just like Newt was a really good choice of the glue; everything is falling apart with him. At least, _Thomas_ is falling apart without him.

Looking up, Thomas starts when he see Newt standing in the middle of the fire. He looks half-crazed, blood caking the side of his face. Thomas wants to throw up, jerks to his feet.

“Thomas,” Minho says, frowning. “What the shucks got into you?”

Thomas wants to run. He could get away from most of them, he knows, but not Minho. Minho’s always been at his heels. _I’m fine_ , he wants to say, but that would be a lie. A big. Shucking. Lie. He shakes his head, and turns on his heel, ignoring everyone staring at him, just another thing to tack onto their list of reasons Thomas is to be avoided.

“Hey,” Minho says, grabbing his wrist as he passes. “You’re going to have to talk to me eventually.”

Thomas shrugs him off, ignores Newt yelling after him.

“I hate you!”

 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

_“Please, Tommy, please.”_

Thomas jerks awake, gasping and twisting under his bedclothes.

Newt is standing at the foot of his bed, looking clean and happy. It’s an illusion. Thomas rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand. Newt is still there. “They’re talking about you.”

Thomas shrugs. He doesn’t care. He’s heard them; they wonder how he made it out of the Maze, how he led them through the Scorch, how he escaped and brought them to Paradise. He didn’t, not really. He barely knew what he was doing the entire time, and weren’t Minho and Teresa (shuck, _Teresa_ ) and Brenda just as important? Hadn’t they done as much?

Hadn’t Newt?

 _Leave me alone_. Thomas wishes it silently, staring at Newt until his eyes water.

A blink and Newt is gone.

 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“You know,” someone is saying. “You’d think he’d be happier.”

Thomas walks into the lunch hut, where Frypan is still reigning supreme. The food is making his mouth water, and he grins as Frypan dishes out some food. Like Minho, Frypan doesn’t force him to say anything, just nods and gives him a reassuring smile.

“What?”

The people gathered at the end of the tables are still talking, and as Thomas passes, the first speaker says, “Tommy.”

Thomas drops his tray, has a hand wrapped in the guy’s shirt before he’s even thought about what he’s doing. There’s a roaring in his ears, and even the panic on the guy’s face can’t break through the anger coursing through Thomas’ body. _Nobody_ gets to call him Tommy, not anymore. He wants to say so aloud, but he can’t make his voice work. It doesn’t matter anyway, Frypan’s already there, pulling Thomas away.

“Shuck, man, what did you say?!”

Frypan has an arm around Thomas’ chest and for a minute, Thomas sinks into it. Startled, Frypan adjusts his weight, but Thomas is already straitening, cursing his lapse. He has to be strong. He has to pretend at least.

The guy is still looking panicked, angry, but panicked, and adjusts his shirt. “I didn’t do anything!”

“He called him Tommy,” Minho says, and Thomas hadn’t even realised he was there. He’s looking at Thomas as though he’s actually seeing him now, and Thomas gives into the urge to run. He’s out of the hut and disappearing into the woods, not even caring that Minho and Frypan are both calling after him.

 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Newt is waiting for him, eyes dark. “That was a stupid thing to do.”

Thomas ignores him, always ignores him.

He’s so tired. He just wants to give it up and _tell_ somebody.

“Minho,” Newt says, like he’s been saying since they arrived in Paradise.

Looking at the expression on Newt’s face, eyes full of understanding and something else that Thomas is too scared to name, he knows he has to.

 _I will_ , Thomas silently promises, and has to turn away from Newt’s smile.

 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“I killed Newt,” Thomas says, using his voice for the first time in months. Minho looks relieved for a split second, then concerned, then angry.

“You never told me.” Minho’s anger isn’t reflected in his tone, and Thomas half wishes it was. He wants Minho to take it out on him, to punch him and make them both feel better. “Than again, you haven’t said a shucking word since getting here.”

Thomas shrugs, doesn’t know how to answer that. Newt is standing over Minho’s left shoulder, looking like he’d never left the glade. He’s smiling and it’s the look on his face that lets Thomas keep talking.

“He begged me. He _asked_. Told me everything about his leg, about hating me, about wanting to die.” Now that Thomas has started, he can’t stop, words tumbling over themselves to get out. He only realises he’s crying when Minho, looking as uncomfortable as he ever has, tugs Thomas in one-handed and hugs him.

“You shucking _idiot_ ,” Minho snaps. “You should have said something. Been holding this in, shucking torturing yourself, you-”

He cuts off, arm tightening around Thomas’ shoulders. Thomas cries because he doesn’t know what else to do, because he’s been as strong as he can for months and now that they’re safe, now that they have time to think, he doesn’t want to. He misses Newt like a phantom limb and doesn’t think he’s ever going to be okay again.

“You will,” Newt promises. He brushes a thumb over Thomas’ cheek. “You’ll get through this.”

Thomas doesn’t think that’s true, but it’s a start. “I’m sorry.”

“Shucking hell, Tommy,” Minho says, the name slipping out and surprising them both. Thomas doesn’t feel the rage he did before, even though it sounds strange coming from Minho and not Newt.

Thomas scrubs a hand over his face as they pull apart. “I am sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Minho says gruffly. “You think he’d want you to be?”

“No,” Newt says, but Minho can’t see him. Thomas kind of wishes he couldn’t either.

He wants to tell Minho that Newt won’t leave, that he’s haunting Thomas and probably will for the rest of time. It should be frightening, Minho would probably think he was crazy and shove him in lock up if he knew it, but it’s a secret Thomas wants to keep. It’s selfish, something he wants because he loves - _loved_ \- Newt too.

“No.” Thomas opens his mouth, closes it, tries again. “I love him.”

Minho closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “Shuck.”

It’s the second worst thing Thomas has ever experienced. His rubs his thumb against his forefinger, surprised when Minho reaches out to stop him.

“Stop shucking hiding, Tommy. It ain’t nothing to be ashamed of.” Minho looks fierce, like he did facing down the Maze and grievers, and Thomas swallows, thinks maybe he can be okay with this after all. He doesn’t know what to say in return, but Minho’s throwing an arm over his shoulder and leading him back to the fire, promising to stick close to him for the next few days, and Thomas feels the weight on his back ease just a little.

 

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“I love you,” Newt says.

“I love you, too,” Thomas replies, leaning in to kiss him.

As their lips meet, Thomas can almost pretend this is real.


End file.
